


lonely bastards, buried in burdens

by Bamf_babe



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Jack Crawford loves Bella Crawford, Jack has the most tragic ending of any character and it makes me so sad, Jack-Centric, M/M, POV Jack Crawford, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Suicidal Thoughts, but only in the flashback, the MCD isn't Jack or Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bamf_babe/pseuds/Bamf_babe
Summary: Hannibal’s eyes drifted to Jack’s gun and he knew what the man wanted.“You know why I came here Jack.”Jack nodded.“Will you do me this courtesy?”Jack pulled out his gun and trained it on Hannibal, who didn’t move. He didn’t want to.“Tell me why I should, give me a reason you deserve this mercy.”...After the disappearance of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, Jack heads back to Sicily. He's tired and the memories chasing him are only growing louder.
Relationships: Bella Crawford/Jack Crawford, Jack Crawford & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33
Collections: Hannibal Flash Fic #004





	lonely bastards, buried in burdens

The room seemed to be shrinking in on itself. Above his head, the wood cracked ominously as the snow seemed to push down on the sagging wood of the roof. There were pools of water on the dusty floor from the melting snow and every piece of furniture seemed to be rotting. This house was a shell and as Jack walked up to the one intact piece of furniture in the room, a piano, and ran his hand along it’s length he wondered if he was simply a shell as well. He was tired, more tired than he had ever been before and part of him wondered if he would ever leave this state of exhaustion. 

Jack sighed and leaned against the broken piano. He had no one left. For a time, he had Bella, but she had been gone for years. He then had Will and for a time, Hannibal. Price and Zeller were still alive but rarely talked to him. He knew that the only thing they saw when they looked at him was Beverly. Miriam was alive but also rarely talked to him. He reminded her of every trauma she went through and most days when she saw him walking the halls of the behavioral analysis unit she turned the other way. Every hall was full of ghosts for him and Jack mentally applauded Hannibal Lecter. When the man had disappeared after killing Francis Dolarhyde, taking Will Graham alongside him, _dead, a voice inside him whispered, they were classified as dead, they found blood on the rocks of the cliff_ , Jack hadn’t thought about how empty his life was. Hannibal might have manipulated or pushed Will towards complete codependency but he drew others into his circle as well. 

Jack had never been a friendly person. The close friends he had he was extremely loyal to and despite his circle always being small it was strong. Hannibal Lecter had taken that all away. Every person Jack had ever been close to was slowly plucked away from him and Jack didn’t even know it until it was too late. Every decision Hannibal made had driven Jack deeper into isolation and loneliness. Even Hannibal’s decision to save Bella was a Devil’s Bargain. Hannibal might have saved Bella from an overdose of morphine, but Jack had gone and overdosed her himself to spare her the pain not even a year later. 

His hands clenched in their gloves and Jack wanted to sink to the floor but the thought of the decades of filth paused his movement. Once, this house had been a vacation home. After Hannibal and Will’s disappearance, death, Jack had taken a leave of absence. He didn’t know where exactly he was going but soon found himself traveling through Sicily once more. When he had been chasing Hannibal through Florence, he hadn’t thought to head back to the Navy Base where he had met Bella, where they had fallen in love. The thought had been far too painful. Now, alone in a way Jack hadn’t been in many years, he headed back to the ruins of what once was a lovely place to visit in Mount Etna, a skiing lodge. He and Bella had spent a winter here. 

This was where they had become close, where they had truly fallen in love. He missed her like an aching limb and he wished more than anything she was here now. If no one else in his life was destined to stay, if he was cursed to be isolated, the one thing he would ask before his sentence was more time with Bella. He closed his eyes and remembered. 

The walls sewed themselves back-up and the dust lifted and disappeared, voices began drifting through walls that were once again standing as a fire sprang to life and garlands and wreaths hung themselves as Jack was sucked into his memories. 

* * *

_“Jack! Come on over here!” Bella said, gesturing him to a low couch in front of the table. There were about ten people staying in the lodge tonight, most of them Bella’s coworkers from NATO. He felt a touch off-beat surrounded by people he didn’t know but he was making an active effort to be more sociable at Bella’s request and a vacation to Mount Etna was perfect for the occasion. It was nearly Christmas and the lodge smelled of roasting meat, chocolate and pine. It was perfect._

_He made his way over to the couch and settled next to Bella, his legs easily folding themselves onto the pillows and leaning against her, kissing her neck as she laughed and jokingly pulled away, her hand outstretched as she tried to keep her drink intact._

_“I’m here, now what do you want from me?” he said into her neck._

_Bella laughed, she was a touch tipsy from the free flowing alcohol, they all were, and looked at him, “I wanted to introduce you to Jeanine from the French Diplomat’s office, remember?”_

_Jeanine waved at Jack and he waved back, not making a move to get up off the couch._

_“Nice to meet you Jeanine.”_

_“Lovely to meet you too Jack, Phyllis here won’t stop talking about you, saying things such as, ‘Jack brought me the most lovely flowers’ ‘Jack is taking me out to eat at that small shop again’ ‘Jack is such a gentleman’. I hope you know you are setting the bar too high for the rest of our partners.”_

_“I can’t say it’s a one-sided love Jeanine, Bella is the most amazing woman in the world so I can only do my best to treat her that way.”_

_Bella slapped his shoulder playfully, “Jack, you know the excessive flattery gets you nowhere.”_

_He smiled at her, “Well it seems to have gotten me praise amongst your friends if nothing else.”_

_She tilted her head down a touch in embarrassment and then looked back up at Jeanine, “We all know you are just upset that Carl hasn’t so much as bought you chocolates at work.”_

_Jeanine sighed, “Ah, to be romanced at work. Honestly, I had no idea how you have the time Jack, being in the Navy you must be busy.”_

_Jack shrugged, “I make the time, and I don’t plan on making the Navy a career so I am not as invested as some of the others.”_

_“Yet you are still one of the best,” Bella said poking at his side, “Jack wants to go into law enforcement.”_

_“The FBI has already offered me a job.”_

_A few others join their little circle and someone speaks up, “Law enforcement, well let us know if you have any insights into Il Mostro will you!”_

_People laughed but Bella said, “Oh trust me, Jack has insights, I have heard enough of them to be almost tired of the conversation.”_

_Jeanine looked at Jack, “I would love to hear them.”_

_Bella rolled her eyes good-naturedly as Jack began speaking, “Judging from the portrayal of the victims and the posing mimicking high art, the victim is likely educated or runs in the more elite circles of Florence. We are looking for someone with either medical training or in-training. I got a chance to see one of the bodies and the mutilation was surgical in its precision. That doesn’t happen by accident. The killer had practice on people before. The killer is aloof and arrogant, he sees his victims as lesser. Likely a man, likely white but it’s difficult to tell for sure. However, in order to go unnoticed while hiding and posing the bodies the killer would have to be unconscious so a white man is probably the likely profile as anyone else would have too much attention and be remembered.”_

_As he finished speaking the people around him looked a bit shocked for a moment before someone clapped a bit and said, “Well that’s more than I have ever heard from the papers!”_

_Jeanine spoke, “I can see why you are going into law enforcement now,” she turned to Bella, “keep a close eye on him, I can only imagine the trouble he will get up to once he has a gun and a badge.”_

_“Oh I will try my best, but stopping Jack once he has a goal is a bit like trying to hold back an avalanche.”_

_“And you love me for it,” Jack said._

_“And I love you for it.”_

_Jeanine and the others drifted away and conversation hovered around Jack and Bella as they sat in front of the fire, Bella sipping at her drink as Jack reached for his own._

_“This feels good, here, doesn’t it?” Jack said, looking in the fire._

_Bella leaned against him and he felt her hair brush his cheek, “It does, it really does.”_

_“I wish we could stay this way, here, forever. I feel content Bella, and I don’t want this feeling to end.”_

_“Oh Jack. That’s the beautiful thing about moments. They end. If life was a constant feeling of contentment then we wouldn’t understand why times like this are so beautiful.”_

_He sighed into her hair and put his hand around her neck and drew her in, “What if we don’t have moments like this again?”_

_“We have our whole futures ahead of us. I am transferring back to the US, you are heading to Quantico and the FBI has been practically begging for you to start for months now. I know you’ve been putting off the move.”_

_“I am worried about changing who we are, changing what we are. What if when we move back to the states, we find that our time here together has been a bubble and that once the rose-colored glasses are removed our love won’t stand the test of time?”_

_Bella turned away from Jack’s shoulder and sat on her knees on the couch, facing Jack now and looking him in his eyes, “Jack Crawford, you absolute moron. I don’t choose to spend my time with just anyone and if you are going to insult my intelligence to say I don’t know the difference between love and infatuation then you don’t know me at all.”_

_“I would never insult you like that. Any insecurity is on the part of me.”_

_Her eyes soften, “You know I love you, right?”_

_Jack took a deep breath and began speaking, “I have been waiting for the right time for this, and I know we’ve talked about this but I have just been too worried to finally do what we’ve talked about.”_

_With that, Jack moved off the couch and got down on one knee in front of the fire and Bella’s hands went to her mouth. Of course, they had talked about getting married before returning to the United States but they had never discussed the timeline, Bella wanting the proposal to be a surprise._

_“From the moment I saw you walking down the streets of Sicily, I knew you were the one for me. I heard a chorus of ‘Bella’ chanted at you from the men on the sidewalk and nothing was more beautiful than the way you turned around and slapped him in the face for daring to cat-call you on the streets. Your strength, your resilience and your heart calls to me from every corner of the world and I could live a thousand lifetimes and never find someone I would wish to devote myself to more. You fit into every piece of my life I had resigned to being alone in and my life without you would be in grayscale. So it is now that I ask you Bella, with my heart in my hands, will you marry me?”_

_The people in the lodge were listening in and Bella nodded, tears streaming down her face and Jack slipped the ring onto her finger. It was his mother’s ring, traditional in his family and he picked her up, swinging her around and spilling his drink on to the floor as Bella’s foot kicked it off the table. He couldn’t bring himself to care._

_He brought her in and kissed her and the few people around them let up a cheer. As he removed himself from the kiss, Jack smiled. He had his whole life ahead of him and Bella would be there, at his side._

* * *

The warmth slowly left the room as the walls fell apart and the fire went out. Jack’s bones felt old and tired. He tightened his grip on the edge of the broken piano. That had been more than 30 years ago now. He had been a young man full of life and vigor. Now, he had no one left. Simply his one memory and his own thoughts. 

He felt a few tears fall from his cheeks as he looked around the ruined house. He didn’t even know what he expected when he traveled here. Perhaps another young couple, fool-hardy and in love, the lodge still functioning and warm? What he had found instead was simply another reminder that the world had moved on without him. 

Jack felt wrong-footed. What place was there for him in the world anymore? Who did he have left? He knew that he would go back to Quantico and sit in his office, waiting for news of the latest killer, of the latest profile he would have to create. There would be new students. There was already a girl making waves in the trainee class, Clarice Starling. She would surely be a rising star at the BAU. He probably shouldn’t get too close, shouldn’t go near her. If he wanted her to succeed he should stay away. 

He was tired, so tired, and the cold from the snow was seeping into his bones in a way he hadn’t felt before. Jack felt the decades of stress and wear on his body and he knew that soon he should return to the rented car and drive away from this place. But now, here, he would let himself grieve. 

Remembering the way Bella’s face had looked at he proposed, the way her face had looked when she closed her eyes for the final time, how she had been grateful for his assisted suicide. He thought about all the people he had failed over the years. He had allowed Miriam to be captured and tortured by Lecter, only to unwittingly spend years using the man as a close confidant and friend. He had pushed Will to become close with Lecter and hadn’t seen the signs until it was too late. He had allowed Lecter to spend more time with Bella in her final months than him. Every person Jack touched, he poisoned and he hated himself for it. 

Part of him hoped Lecter was dead. The thought of Will and Hannibal, alive, was too painful for him to think about. A constant reminder that he had failed in every way.   
A crunch behind him. Although Jack was older now and slower, he still moved quickly, hand going to his gun. Then he froze. It was Hannibal. 

For a moment, Jack believed he was hallucinating. How could this be? Hannibal was dead, dead, dead. Then he looked at Hannibal, really looked. He looked like a wreck. He was wearing a thick coat but not of particularly good quality and he looked like he hadn’t showered in a week, a thick coating of stubble on his face and his hair limp and greasy. The bags under his eyes were large and tired and Jack knew this wasn’t a hallucination. If he had hallucinated Hannibal he would have imagined him in his three-piece suits, perfectly poised as always. No, Jack was truly seeing a broken man and he knew all at once what had happened and felt a wave of grief hit him. 

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Jack said. 

Hannibal hung his head and leaned against the doorframe of the ruined lodge. He seemed so much weaker now. Jack had always seen him as a pillar of strength, but know he looked as tired as Jack did. For a long time, Hannibal didn’t speak, when he began talking his voice was hoarse and his accent thicker. 

“I should have been the one to die. I shouldn’t have survived. I had been shot, I had the more grievous injuries...then...when we hit the water, Will hit his head on the one of the rocks and when I brought us to shore. Will didn’t wake up.”

Jack ran his hands over his face, feeling tears in his eyes, “There was no body.”

“I took it with me, I couldn’t...I couldn’t accept he was gone. It should have been me Jack, I expected it to be me and it still doesn’t feel real.”

“How did you find me?”

“Your whereabouts are a matter of public record.”

Jack paused, letting silence, grief fill the space between them, “Why did you find me?”

“I have no purpose now. I had no life planned where Will was not in it, and I…”

Hannibal drifted off and looking at him, Jack recognized that expression, that look of utter lostness and adriftness. He saw it in the mirror every morning. When you lost your other half, the love of your life, there wasn’t anything left. Hannibal genuinely had no plans beyond having Will and Jack could see that Hannibal had come to him because he too had no one else.   
It was a depressing thought, two old men, lonely bastards, buried in burdens, crying out for the memories that had long since past. They carried their regrets like shrouds and now in their isolation, Hannibal had sought Jack out. Hannibal’s eyes drifted to Jack’s gun and he knew what the man wanted. 

“You know why I came here Jack.”

Jack nodded. 

“Will you do me this courtesy?”

Jack pulled out his gun and trained it on Hannibal, who didn’t move. He didn’t want to. 

“Tell me why I should, give me a reason you deserve this mercy.”

Hannibal sighed, resting his knees on the filthy ground and looking up at Jack in supplication, “I had plans of a house in Cuba. I made it for us you know? I bought us a dog, a rescue from a nearby shelter. The kitchen was fully stocked and I had a welcoming prepared. I had money in tax shelters and a dozen different identities and passports. We could have lived our entire lives in bliss. I had eventually prepared. Except for the eventually he wouldn’t be there.”

Hannibal’s breath hitched “I brought him there you know? I drove a boat all the way to this house and I brought his body into the bedroom and I laid him down to sleep. When I looked around, I saw the echoes of the life we should have had. I heard him laughing as the dogs barked in the living room, and heard myself cooking in the kitchen. Our life would have been beautiful and instead I was stuck standing in the grave of a life I never even got to see. I broke the dog’s neck and set it beside his body in the bedroom. I knew that we would have had arguments about letting her on the bed. I let him win that argument in death. I saw him become in time to see him die and now I will never get to know the man that I loved without the ties we had. I loved a man I never was able to be with and never will. Our lives together were a fantasy and everytime I see an identity I made or go to a place I imagined us together I think of everything we never had. I am in agony Jack and I beg of you this mercy, this blessing.”

Jack’s hands were shaking now, tears coming out of his eyes. He had brought cuffs with him on this trip as a force of habit and roughly grabbed Hannibal, putting his hands into the cold metal and tightening it more than necessary. Hannibal had killed Will Graham, had cost him his friendship with Miriam, time with his wife and ruined everything Jack had built. He would get no mercy. 

Jack leaned into and whispered harshly in Hannibal’s ear, “You will get no mercy from me Hannibal. I want every second of your life to be in memory of what you have done. I want you back on the other side of that glass, I want you suffering. I want you to be called on to consult on cases and I want you to watch as young, fresh-faced recruits come near your cell and ask you questions. I want you to play your mind-games with them and remember your past manipulations and most of all I want you to remember. _None of them are Will Graham and never will be_.”

Hannibal let out a sob and Jack grimaced in shared pain. They were grieving and Hannibal had come expecting absolution and Jack would not give it. He was too old, too tired. He pulled Hannibal up and began walking back towards his car. 

“There’s a new girl, Clarice Starling, I think you’d like to meet her. Maybe one-day she’ll ask you for help.”

Hannibal didn’t even struggle as Jack put him in the passenger seat. As they left the broken lodge behind Jack felt the cries of memories calling him back. He felt the warmth of a hand on his shoulder and a voice whispering in his ear, “Bella, Bella, Bella.”

Jack would always carry the shade of Bella behind him, she would stand just behind his shoulder, just beyond reach. But now, looking at Hannibal, he could see the shade of Will the same way. Bella and Will, standing behind the broken men that loved them like the fools they were, unable to let go. He felt the presence of ghosts but looking at the broken man beside him, Jack took cold comfort in the fact he wasn’t alone. 

  
  
  



End file.
